Kay Adams: “I Knew That I Didn’t Want To Stay” on ‘Good Morning Football’

"I knew that I didn’t want to stay, and I had an offer to stay. I was like, ‘Man, do I really want to do this for four more [years]?"

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Kay Adams has no regrets about stepping away from NFL Network’s Good Morning Football to launch her own show, Up & Adams, with FanDuel TV in 2022. Appearing on the Bussin’ With The Boys podcast, Adams opened up about her decision to leave a show she helped make a morning staple for football fans across the country.

“I loved Good Morning Football and being on in every important facility is invaluable,” Adams said. “You walk in and you have this three hours—it replayed for three hours—so six hours you’re on in the most important places.”

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Adams, who was part of Good Morning Football’s original lineup when it debuted in 2016, said she took great pride in the work she did there but reached a point where she felt the timing was right to move on.

“I felt so good about the work I did there,” she explained. “I knew that I didn’t want to stay, and had an offer to stay. But I was like, ‘Man, do I really want to do this for four more [years]? Is this the right time to leave?’ And I very much feel great about when I left.”

After leaving NFL Network in 2022, Adams partnered with FanDuel TV to create Up & Adams. A daily show mixing NFL conversation, player interviews, and sports culture in a more relaxed, personality-driven format. She said her confidence in the project stemmed from FanDuel’s track record of empowering creators. Giving them room to shape their own content.

“I had felt very good about sitting with FanDuel and what that could look like,” Adams said. “At that point, Pat [McAfee] was still with FanDuel. I loved what that looked like—the support FanDuel gave him and the creative freedom.”

Now entering her fourth year with the platform. Adams believes the move positioned her ahead of the industry’s evolution toward creator-led sports media. “I look at it and I’m seeing other people do that, and that’s where content creation can go,” she said. “I feel like I made the right move at the right time.”

Reflecting on her Good Morning Football years, Adams also credited the show for pioneering a more authentic, unpolished style of sports TV—one that has since become commonplace across digital and linear platforms.

“We were really interested in breaking the fourth wall, which back then you didn’t really do,” she said. “Now it’s normalized in the content space. But we were just so down from the beginning to say, ‘Oh snap, my mic fell off,’ or, ‘We got tripped up on this wire.’ We loved and embraced those moments.”

Adams believes that willingness to be real on camera helped shape not only Good Morning Football’s enduring identity but also the tone of today’s sports media.

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